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On Saturday evening, my friend Chris and I went exploring. Our first stop was a beautiful old Church in a once beautiful Pittsburgh neighborhood. Chris had happened upon the parish a few weeks back, but locked doors kept him out. This time, however, we timed our arrival to coincide with the vigil Mass. Locked door problem solved.

As we walked towards the steps, Chris pointed out a house immediately across the street from the parish. In its windows, hung a sign: “Stop Shooting. We love you.” Always reassuring.

Nothing says “Welcome to the neighborhood” quite like this.

Inside, the Church was lovely. Unfortunately, it was also empty. Maybe 70 people sat in pews that easily could have sat 700. It was quiet too. No noises or cries from small children broke the silence. In fact, save for two teenagers and one young mom, Chris and I were the youngest people there. And at 45 and 38 respectively, spring chickens we ain’t.

After Mass, a small group of elderly people stopped us to chat. We paid a compliment or two and Chris mentioned he’d tried visiting before. The parishioners just nodded their heads.

“Can’t keep it open anymore,” one older gentleman told us. “It’s the kids. We just spent $35,000 fixing the stained glass. They keep breaking the windows. It’s the same in the school. It’s closed now, but we can’t board the windows up fast enough. And the pipes and gutters, they’ve taken all them too.”

“Copper,” another woman added, by way of explanation.

Right then, the priest, who was making his way back up the aisle, stopped to chat with our little group. The conversation repeated itself—“Such a beautiful Church.” “Such a bad neighborhood.”

“Sounds like you’ve cut your work cut out for you,” said Chris, adding some momentary variety to the dialogue. “You’ll have to get out and evangelize those boys.”

The priest rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Them? Not likely.” He then moved on to another topic—not in haste, just in total disinterest. To him, evangelizing the neighborhood wasn’t worth a second thought.

Not long after, Chris and I said our goodbyes. As we drove away, past homes with boarded up windows of their own, the conversation turned to Pope Francis and his now famous (or depending on your perspective, infamous) interview in America.

Since the interview came out, Chris has been more sanguine than I.

“He’s doing something great,” he’s reassured me more than once. “He’s going out to the margins. He’s shaking things up. He’s being bold. When you’re bold, you sometimes say things that get misunderstood.”

He said much the same thing as we drove away from the parish.

“That’s who Francis was talking to,” he said. “I’m sure that priest has many virtues, and that parish has many good people. But any life it’s got left in it is kept inside behind locked doors.”

He’s right, of course. That is whom Francis was talking to. He was talking to that priest and his parishioners. He was talking to every corner of the Church that’s tired, stagnant, and turned in on itself. He was also talking to the neighborhood around the Church, to all the people those inside the Church have given up on.

And, in all that, as I’m coming to see, he was also talking to me. And probably you.

Like that priest and his parish, most of us also keep something locked up inside, some piece of our life we’re not willing to give away, some death we’re not willing to die. Most of also have some task set before us by God, a task at which we roll our eyes because it seems too risky, too dangerous, too impossibly hard to even contemplate, let alone carry out. And the world around us, like that troubled Pittsburgh neighborhood, pays for that.

Personally, I’d rather not think about what I’m not giving or doing. I’d prefer to focus on Francis’ choice of words in his interview: what I liked, what I didn’t like, what I would have done differently. It’s so much easier to deconstruct an interview than change a life.

Deconstructing an interview, however, won’t get me to Heaven.

That’s not to say I’ve come around to thinking every word of that interview perfectly chosen. I’m not there yet. But I do see that every word of that interview wasn’t for me. Some words were for that Pittsburgh priest. Some words were for the boys playing in the streets outside his parish. Other words were for a woman wounded by abortion, a man wounded by greed, an ex-Catholic wounded by scandal.

I’m also coming to see that my task isn’t to worry about the words that were there for everyone else. My task is to focus on the words that were there for me. It’s to re-read every last line and ask at their conclusion, “Is Francis talking to me?

I can’t complain about that lukewarm priest refusing to ask that question if I refuse to do the same.

And yes, I know, I don’t have to treat the interview way. It’s a piece in America, not the Catechism. But, come Judgment Day, I won’t be answering for what Pope Francis said in some interview. I’ll be answering for the task I wouldn’t do, the death I wouldn’t die, the people I didn’t love, the Good News I didn’t proclaim.

In short, I’ll be answering for me.

Pope Francis sometimes makes me uncomfortable, but that’s not a bad thing. At the end of my life, I don’t want to look back and see that I was like that priest, rolling my eyes at my what God wants of me. Nor do I want to see that I was like that parish, hiding from the world behind locked doors, or like that neighborhood, bereft of life and hope and beauty. I want to look back and see that I was like Christ, that I walked a path on which I loved him and served him well.

That’s not going to be a comfortable path. It’s going to take a whole lot of poking and prodding to keep me on it. That’s what Francis seems to be trying to do, poking and prodding, keeping all of us—faithful and unfaithful—from getting too comfortable. I’m not going to say to No to that prodding. Like it or not, I need it.

14 thoughts on “Is Francis Talking to Me?”

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So it seems a big question here is “what is ours to do”? Pope Francis seems to be asking all of us this question. And given the recent experience the author had at this parish (which I realize is not likely her parish as the article mentioned you were a visitor), what would evangelization look like? It seems to evangelize means to to give witness to the Gospel, the message of Jesus. One thing I’ve noticed is that Catholics seem to differ on the “how” to evangelize, what this looks like. Personally, I feel strongly to evangelize means to live by example, to purposely and intentionally go where I am called, not where I am comfortable. For me, this means living in a neighborhood as you describe, working with my neighbors to create a community garden and/or playground where children have a safe place to play, participating in a prayer group that is open to persons at all stages of their faith journey, particularly those struggling with their faith, and getting involved in local decision making about education, housing, hunger, transportation and safety service programs in the neighborhood. Isn’t that all evangelization? On a micro and macro level? On a social, spiritual, economic level?
What does evangelization look like to you? What concrete suggestions do you have to evangelize the neighborhood boys, encourage the compassion fatigued pastor, energize and provide resources for the parish community? And what are we each willing to do to make that happen? Isn’t is all of our responsibility (and not just the pastors)?!
It seems if we are to live inclusively as our faith encourages us to do, and as Pope Francis has been exemplifying for all of us most recently, we, as Catholics need to learn the “how” of what evangelization means for us. And be in open dialogue with one another about it, especially those who don’t see evangelization the same way we do.

So when a Pope says something you agree with, he is talking to the entirety of the Catholic Church – perhaps even humanity – and when you’re not so keen on his words, he is talking to a select group of people?

Emily – great redirecting on what we should be focusing on from Pope Francis’ interview/comments….it’s too bad some of the comments here only spoke about on how the church i full or not. I got it — look at what you are doing, what you can do to help.
Thanks!

Emily, this article is humble and empathetic. Thank you for writing something that has understanding for people in all places on their journey to meet God. I read CV to stay informed, but sometimes the articles here seem too condemning. Your writing embodies what the Christian message should be; to go out and proclaim the Good News, especially to those we are too uncomfortable to associate with. Too often, however, we are more likely to spend money on repairing stained glass windows and making sure that the catechism is strictly sited everywhere. We forget we need to be Christ to others, not be the Catechism to others. Your article has reminded me to focus on being like Christ.

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